Federal prosecutors on Sunday announced the release of an architect who was mistaken for one of the nation's top drug traffickers. Bad information from two informants cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department led Mexico to arrest the wrong man on July 2 in search of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the reputed leader of the Juárez drug cartel, the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) said.
Joaquín Romero Aparicio was released after DNA tests confirmed a relation to family members that had protested his arrest, the PGR said in a new release.
Romero and a second man were seized while shopping at a Mexico City mall, in a case that has became the latest high-profile embarrassment for the PGR.
Family members publicly insisted from the start that Romero was a respected Mexico City architect with no more than a slight physical resemblance to Carrillo Fuentes.
Blood tests last week showed no relation with Carrillo Fuentes, but prosecutors said they were still holding their suspect to probe other possible drug links.
Romero and his shopping companion both were released on Saturday.
Romero said he had worked seven or eight years ago on a house owned by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Vicente's brother and the former leader of the Juárez cartel believed to have died in 1997 from botched plastic surgery, prosecutors said.
Last month, Mexican officials arrested a Lebanese man who had already been cleared of terrorism suspicions by U.S. officials. Mexico said the United States failed to notify them he had been taken off an international alert list.
